University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


BRYANT  AND  THOREAU 


LJA.1HOHT  0  HA  TtfAY 


cfyryant  and  cffioreau 


Copyright,   1907,  by 

THE    BIBLIOPHILE    SOCIETY 

all  rights  reserved 


tsstO  \Q  ebpow-nifittmcm  srlt  gnoms 
srit  labnu  egfiieum  ^noi  istf  c  —  '.nojgnh 

r  9V  INTRODUCTION   **  s 
BY  PROFESSOR  CURTIS  HIDDEN  PAGE,  ,,* 


orfw  nfim  gnucrf  srf*  ni  sir  aettqiue  ton 

Deep  were  my  musings  in  life's  early  blossom 
'Mid  the  twilight  of  mountain-groves  wandering  long, 

wrote  Bryant  in  a  poem  first  printed  by  the 
New  York  Review  for  February,  1826. 
Bryant  had  just  come  to  New  York,  in  1825, 
to  be  associate  editor  of  this  newly  founded 
magazine.  He  had  at  last  decided  to  give  up 
his  profession  of  the  law,  which  was  so  irk 
some;  no  longer  to 


.  .  .  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen, 
And  mingle  among  the  jostling  crowd, 
Where  the  sons  of  strife  are  subtle  and  loud, 

but  to  return  to  the  "calm  life"  of  thought 
and  poetry — 

*».  ;    ^-1  *^0   2rnc'0n    !;r*«*Y2*'  vlffi'^ 

That  won  my  heart  m  my  greener  years, 

Cu  fUTV/sA 

and  to  have  the  courage  to  be,  for  better  or  for 
worse,  a  man  of  letters.  This  decision  had 
been  reached  only  after  much  reflection  and 
hesitation,  after  many  nightly  wanderings 

ix 


M806901 


among  the  mountain-woods  of  Great  Bar- 
rington, — after  long  musings  under  the  stars. 
He  was  twenty-four  or  twenty-five  when  he 
thus  spoke  of  his  "greener  years"  as  already 
belonging  to  the  distant  past — a  mood  that 
need  not  surprise  us  in  the  young  man  who 
had  written  Thanatopsis  at  the  age  of  six 
teen  or  seventeen ;  and  he  was  thirty  when  he 
finally  came  to  this  decision,  which  marked 
the  turning-point  in  his  life. 

These  deciding  years  were  also  the  most 
fruitful,  in  poetic  production,  of  all  his  life. 
From  1824  to  1826  he  wrote  more  than  twice 
as  many  poems  as  in  any  other  three  years ; 
and  among  these  poems  are  many  of  his  most 
characteristic  and  best,  such  as  Autumn 
Woods,  The  Lapse  of  Time,  Mutation,  Monu 
ment  Mountain,  November,  A  Forest  Hymn, 
The  Death  of  the  Flowers,  "I  cannot  forget 
with  what  fervid  devotion,"  The  New  Moon, 
The  Journey  of  Life,  and  October;  and  espe 
cially  several  poems  of  the  stars,  including 
The  Hymn  to  the  North  Star,  The  Song  of 
the  Stars,  The  Firmament,  and  The  Con- 
junction  of  Jupiter  and  Venus.  Yet  it  is 
probable  that  not  half  the  poems  written  dur 
ing  these  years  are  preserved.  Bryant  was  al- 

x 


ways  the  sternest  critic  of  his  own  writings. 
Of  a  series  of  three  odes,  written  a  few  years 
earlier,  he  has  included  only  one  in  his  works. 
Of  the  many  poems  written  for  Miss  Fair- 
child,  before  she  became  Mrs.  Bryant,  we 
have  but  one — "O  Fairest  of  the  rural 
maids."  So  it  may  well  be  that  in  choosing 
for  publication  only  what  he  considered  his 
best,  he  rejected,  in  this  important  period, 
many  characteristic  poems  which,  in  view  of 
the  small  total  amount  of  his  work,  we  can  ill 
afford  to  lose.  Musings  would  seem  to  be  one 
of  these.  Though  in  the  case  of  Bryant  it  is 
particularly  difficult  to  judge  of  dates  by  in 
ternal  evidence — so  little  did  his  thought  and 
style  change  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of 
his  work,  from  Thanatopsis  to  The  Flood  of 
Years — yet  I  feel  almost  safe  in  assigning  our 
poem  to  the  year  1825 ;  the  more  so  since  it  is 
a  poem  of  Autumn,  and  since  the  comet  of 
Encke,  which  he  speaks  of  in  the  poem  and 
names  in  his  note,  was  visible  in  September 
and  October  of  that  year. 

In  any  case,  Musings  is  thoroughly  char 
acteristic  of  Bryant.  No  one  but  he,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  Amer 
ica,  could  have  written  the  beautiful  lines — 

xi 


'£(»;  -  -  Was  breathing  incense  o'er  the  pall 
Of  the  shrouded  earth :  and  dark  and  tall  .     *.^  r 
Stood  up  the  gray  old  trees. 

He  speaks  again  of  "tall  gray  trees"  in  The 
Firmament,  written  at  Great  Harrington  in 
1825.  We  find  "tall  and  dark,"  again  ending 
a  line,  in  the  Forest  Hymn,  also  written  in 
1825. 

Indeed,  Bryant  seems  to  have  realized  that 
he  had  a  tendency  to  overwork  these  too 
easily  coupled  adjectives;  for  in  Monument 
Mountain  he  later  changed  his  original  read 
ing  of  1824,  "these  gray  old  rocks,"  to  "these 
reverend  rocks."  Nowhere  has  he  used  the 
phrase  more  effectively  than  in  this  brief 
tenth  line  of  Musings,  which  stands  out  bold 
and  alone  among  the  longer  lines.  We  find 
here  also  not  a  few  other  phrases  that  are  still 
more  distinctively  characteristic  of  Bryant, 
such  as  "the  shrouded  earth,"  "the  scarf  of 
years,"  "the  lovely  vestal  throng." 

The  central  thoughts  of  the  poem,  as  well 
as  their  phrasing,  may  be  closely  paralleled 
in  Bryant's  well-known  work  of  this  period. 
It  would  seem  that  from  the  time  when  he 
wrote  Thanatopsis  he  could  hardly  conceive 
of  earth  otherwise  than  as  "the  great  tomb  of 

xii 


man,"  "one  mighty  sepulchre."     So  here,  he 
calls  it 

.  .  .  one  vast  chamber  of  the  dead: 
A  mighty  mausoleum,  where 
Nature  lay  shrouded:  and  the  tread 
Of  man  gives  out  a  hollow  sound, 
As  from  a  tomb. 

The  Journey  of  Life  is  of  all  Bryant's  pub 
lished  poems  the  one  which  most  closely  re 
sembles  Musings;  in  fact,  it  is  the  expression, 
condensed  into  three  brief  stanzas,  of  the 
same  succession  of  thoughts  and  moods.  To 
make  this  entirely  clear  one  has  but  to  quote 
the  first  two  lines  of  each  stanza, — 

Beneath  the  waning  moon  I  walk  at  night 
And  muse  on  human  life  .  .  . 

The  trampled  earth  returns  a  sound  of  fear— 
A  hollow  sound,  as  if  I  walked  on  tombs  .  /  £'  < 

And  I,  with  faltering  foot-steps,  journey  on, 
Watching  the  stars  that  roll  the  hours  away  .  .  . 

After  Bryant  had  written  The  Journey  of 
Life  (and  we  know  that  this  was  in  1826), 
he  perhaps  laid  aside  the  poem  Musings, 
thinking  that  he  had  given  the  essence  of  it 
in  his  briefer  lyric.  We  may  be  permitted, 
xiii 


however,  to  prefer  the  more  full  and  free  and 
spontaneous  version,  and  may  even  find  it 
more  beautiful  than  the  other.  It  may  lead 
us  more  gently  and  persuasively  to  the  mood 
of  quiet  acceptance  and  aspiration  which 
Bryant  drew  so  often  from  converse  with 
night  and  the  stars.  "The  thoughtful  stars," 
he  calls  them  in  The  Firmament;  he  was  ever 
their  poet  and  devotee,  and  they  never  failed 
to  bring  him  inspiration  and  "sweet  com 
mune."  Most  of  all  he  loved  the  Pleiades — 
"the  gentle  sisters,"  as  he  names  them  here — 

The  group  of  sister-stars  .  .  .  the  gentle  seven, 

as  he  says  again  in  a  later  tribute,  The  Con 
stellations.  Through  all  his  long  life,  devoted 
more  to  public  service  than  to  poetry,  and  for 
the  most  part  "in  city  pent,"  he  needed  only 
to  walk  alone  at  night, 

And  toward  the  eternal  stars  again  aspire, 

in  order  to  find  again  the  memories  of  his 
youth,  and  the  Nature-inspiration  which  was 
the  inmost  essence  of  his  genius. 

NEW  YORK,  February,  1907. 


xiv 


^. — 


y-    x 


MUSINGS 

I  PASS'D  on  my  nightly  path  alone; 
No  friendly  form  was  hovering  near, 
No  friendly  voice  was  in  mine  ear, 
But  the  night  wind's  wailing  tone. 
On  the  wide  drear  field  no  autumn  bloom 
Look'd  gay,  no  flowret's  rich  perfume 
Was  breathing  incense  o'er  the  pall 
Of  the  shrouded  earth :  and  dark  and  tall 
And  sighing  to  the  passing  breeze 
Stood  up  the  gray  old  trees. 

I  pass'd  on  my  nightly  path  alone 
And  my  weary  feet  trode  faintly  on: 
I  look'd  around  me — the  desolate  earth 
To  wan  and  sorrowful  thoughts  gave  birth 
And  flung  its  own  dark-woven  stole 
And  its  damp  chill  breathings  o'er  my  soul 
And  my  spirit  was  heavy :  It  is  sad 
To  look  on  this  beautiful  earth  when  clad 
In  its  robes  of  darkness;  as  it  were 
But  one  vast  chamber  of  the  dead : 
xvii 


A  mighty  mausoleum,  where 

Nature  lay  shrouded:  And  the  tread 

Of  man  gives  out  a  hollow  sound, 

As  from  a  tomb.    I  look'd  around 

O'er  the  desolate  earth :  there  was  no  ray 

Of  gladness  there:  I  turn'd  away, 

And  look'd  to  the  glorious  heavens  afar, 

Where  the  stranger  orb,1  in  his  flaming  car, 

Rode  on  his  destined  way: 

Like  a  proud  and  bloody  conqueror, 

Bearing  the  banner  of  his  war, 

Arrayed  in  his  golden  robes  of  fame, 

And  crown'd  with  a  victor's  diadem. 

I  look'd  to  the  lovely  vestal  throng 

Of  shining  stars,  and  they  smiled  on  me 

With  a  kind  and  gentle  sympathy — 

For  I  have  lov'd  them  long: 

From  youth  to  manhood  I  have  lov'd 

With  each  pure  and  bright  divinity 

To  hold  sweet  commune:  I  have  rov'd, 

In  boyhood's  hours  of  glee, 

And  since  the  sombre  scarf  of  years 

Was  over  me,  full  many  a  night 

Beneath  their  canopy  of  light, 

And  felt  my  soul  grow  pure  and  bright 

1  The  comet  of  Encke- 

xviii 


As  I  gaz'd  on  them:  And  yet  it  cheers 

My  spirit,  when  the  phantom  fears 

Of  the  far  future  darkly  rise, 

Like  storms  in  autumn's  mellow  skies, 

And  memories  of  sorrow  roll, 

Like  mountain  mists,  upon  my  soul. 

I  lov'd  them  all :  each  one  had  power 
To  chase  the  shades  of  my  dark  hour: 
Each  one  was  dear:  but  yet,  than  all 
That  sate  within  Night's  regal  hall, — 
As  round  some  Sultan's  haram  throne 
Sit  the  bright  dames, — more  sweetly  shone, 
To  me,  my  own  lov'd  Pleiades; 
When  glancing  through  the  old  elm  trees, 
That  proudly  rear'd  their  leafy  dome 
Around  my  boyhood's  peaceful  home, 
As  the  eyes  of  gentle  sisters,  they 
Sent  down  their  mild  and  tranquil  ray. 

When  years  had  roll'd  and  on  their  wings 
Were  borne  away  life's  blossomings, 
Their  gentle  smile,  serene  and  calm, 
Came  o'er  my  heart,  a  healing  balm. 
For  it  brought  in  all  the  glow  of  truth 
The  hallow'd  memories  of  youth. 


xix 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  ballad  here  printed  for  the  first  time, 
through  the  liberality  of  Mr.  Bixby,  is  proba 
bly  the  earliest  of  the  extant  verses  of  the 
author.  No  date  can  with  certainty  be  given 
it;  but  very  likely  it  was  written  during  his 
college  life,  which  ended  in  the  summer  of 
1837.  It  was  during  those  years  at  Harvard 
that  he  read  Tasso's  Jerusalem  Delivered,  and 
still  earlier,  like  many  young  poets,  he  had 
delighted  in  the  easy,  flowing  verse  of  Mrs. 
Hemans. 

This  ballad  (perhaps  the  only  one  he  ever 
wrote)  savors  of  both  Tasso  and  Mrs.  He- 
mans.  In  The  Service,  written  in  1840,  are 
traces  of  this  early  interest  in  Godfrey  of 
Boulogne  and  the  Crusades ;  and  portions  of 
The  Service  may  have  been  written  a  year  or 
two  before  it  was  offered  to  Margaret  Fuller 
for  The  Dial,  in  1840,  and  by  her  declined. 

This  ballad  was  never  offered  anywhere  for 

printing,  I  fancy,  but  cherished  by  some  aunt 

or  cousin  into  whose  hands  it  fell,  and  thus 

preserved  in  the  Thatcher  family  at  Bangor, 

xxiii 


Maine,  where  Mr.  Bixby  found  it  in  1906, 
along  with  later  verses  unknown  to  the  pub 
lic,  which  appeared  in  The  Bibliophile  So 
ciety's  recent  Thoreau  publication. 

The  poetical  product  of  Thoreau's  youth 
was  much  larger  than  he  ever  allowed  to  ap 
pear  in  print;  nor  did  the  whole  of  it  fall  into 
the  hands  of  his  literary  executors, — his  sis 
ter  Sophia,  Emerson,  Ellery  Channing,  Har 
rison  Blake,  E.  H.  Russell  and  myself.  I 
name  these  six  persons,  because  all  of  us 
have,  first  or  last,  had  a  hand  in  the  work  of 
presenting  his  writings  to  the  public.  To 
these  might  be  added  Mr.  Henry  Salt,  his 
English  biographer,  who  edited  in  London  the 
only  collection  of  his  poems  aiming  at  com 
pleteness  which  has  yet  appeared.  Several 
persons  aided  Mr.  Salt  in  this  collection, 
notably,  Mr.  Blake,  myself  and  Miss  Anna 
Ward,  of  Spenser,  Mass.  But  none  of  these 
eight  persons  ever  had  all  Thoreau's  verses  in 
hand,  or  even  within  their  knowledge.  Sophia 
Thoreau  may  possibly  be  the  exception,  but  I 
doubt  it. 

F.  B.  SANBORN 

CONCORD,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
January  28,  1907. 

xxiv 


GODFREY  OF  BOULOGNE 

THE  moon  hung  low  o'er  Provence  vales, 

T  was  night  upon  the  sea ; 
Fair  France  was  wooed  by  Afric  gales, 

And  paid  in  minstrelsy; 
Along  the  Rhone  there  moves  a  band, 

Their  banner  in  the  breeze, 
Of  mail-clad  men  with  iron  hand, 

And  steel  on  breast  and  knees : 
The  herdsman  following  his  droves 

Far  in  the  night  alone, 
Read  faintly  through  the  olive  groves, — 

T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

The  mist  still  slumbered  on  the  heights, 

The  glaciers  lay  in  shade, 
The  stars  withdrew  with  faded  lights, 

The  moon  went  down  the  glade. 
Proud  Jura  saw  the  day  from  far, 

And  showed  it  to  the  plain; 
She  heard  the  din  of  coming  war 

But  told  it  not  again : 
The  goatherd  seated  on  the  rocks, 

Dreaming  of  battles  none, 
xxvii 


Was  wakened  by  his  startled  flocks, — 
T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

Night  hung  upon  the  Danube's  stream, 

Deep  midnight  on  the  vales; 
Along  the  shore  no  beacons  gleam, 

No  sound  is  on  the  gales ; 
The  Turkish  lord  has  banished  care, 

The  harem  sleeps  profound, 
Save  one  fair  Georgian  sitting  there, 

Upon  the  Moslem  ground; 
The  lightning  flashed  a  transient  gleam, 

A  flaring  banner  shone, 
A  host  swept  swiftly  down  the  stream, — 

T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

T  was  noon  upon  Byzantium, 

On  street  and  tower  and  sea; 
On  Europe's  edge  a  warlike  hum, 

Of  gathered  chivalry: 
A  troop  went  boldly  through  the  throng 

Of  Ethiops,  Arabs,  Huns, 
Jews,  Greeks  and  Turks, — to  right  their  wrong; 

Their  swords  flashed  thousand  suns. 
Their  banner  cleaved  Byzantium's  dust, 

And  like  the  sun  it  shone; 
Their  armor  had  acquired  no  rust, — 

T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne, 
xxviii 


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